“No rally can be sustained with yields and P/Es so poorly valued,” says underground investor Chris Weber, writing for DailyWealth. Chris is a very special kind of investor. When he was 16 years old, he turned just $650 (saved from his paper route) into $1.8 million through a series of remarkably insightful investments. So naturally we’re all ears when Chris gives his opinion on the direction of the market.

Chris is bearish on US stocks. (He’s mainly in cash and precious metals.) Why? Because there’s no value in the US stock market.

As of the end of July, the dividend yield on the S&P 500 has fallen to only 2.13%. When the rally began in March, the yield was over 3.5%. That is a huge fall in a short time.

Then, as stock prices have soared, earnings of companies have just not kept pace. In many cases, they are down sharply. This imbalance in price to earnings is shown in the weird spike in the P/E ratio on the S&P 500. It is now up to 127 times annual earnings, up from less than 20 times earnings at the rally’s start in March.

In other words, the dividend yield and the P/Es were not what you see at real bottoms. In really low markets, investors are shaken so much that years are required for them to regain bullishness.

Instead, I think what we’ve been seeing are the types of violent rallies within bear markets we saw throughout both the 1930s and the 60s-early 70s.

So once again, I’m just watching the stock markets. My position is that if the Dow Industrials and Transports can both better their previous record highs that they reached back in the second half of 2007, then I’ll be interested and ready to say that we are really off to the races again.

What I think is more likely is a repeat of the period of 1966 to 1975, where we’ll see a series of rallies within a bear market. In other words, this will be an easy time to lose money, and a hard time to make it.

Porter Stansberry has another take on stocks. He reckons we’re in the early stages of a “massive inflation.” Porter’s argument is simple. As long as the government keeps printing up trillions of dollars a year and holding short-term rates at nearly 0%, financial stocks are going to rise… And as long as financial stocks rise, the rest of market will follow.

Financial stocks are on a roll, as you can plainly see from the nearby chart of the financial sector ETF (XLF). Now, ask yourself a very simple question: Are investors buying financials because of their strong balance sheets and smart management or are they buying because they know that the government intends to keep pumping money into these boated behemoths?

Say what you like, US stocks are rising. All we know is we don’t like it one little bit. And we wouldn’t touch stocks knowing what we do about the market. As Chris Weber says, “This will be an easy time to lose money, and a hard time to make it.” Amen to that.

So today we turn away from the markets and focus on something more important: basic investment principles. As Alexander Green, investment director of The Oxford Club, puts it over at InvestmentU.com, “It’s not uncommon to run into investors who are knee deep in option trading, currencies, short selling, or sophisticated arbitrage strategies without mastering – or even understanding – basic investment principles.”

Here’s what Alex believes are the six factors that determine the value of your portfolio’s. Only one of these six factors is beyond your control: your assets’ annual compounded return. That means it only makes sense to focus on the other five.

1. The amount of money you save. To put it bluntly you have to start by maximizing your income, minimizing your outgoing and paying yourself first. Why? Because expenses always rise to meet the income available. As soon as you get a raise or a higher paying job, you’ll find that you need a new car, a bigger house, better furniture and a new set of Callaway irons. But you have to draw the line somewhere. You can’t save a pittance and expect your portfolio to perform miracles each year.

2. The length of time your money compounds. The sooner you start investing the better. And the longer you leave it alone the better. If you start too late – or raid your portfolio to redo the kitchen or take the kids to Disney – you’re going to have a lot of catching up to do down the road. The old chestnut is true: Don’t touch your capital. It’s like eating your seed corn.

3. Your asset allocation. Studies consistently show that how you divide your portfolio among non-correlated assets – stocks, bonds, real estate investment trusts, precious metals, etc. – determines 90% of your portfolio’s long-term return. (The rest is due to security selection.) If you’re too conservative – or too aggressive to stick with your program – you simply won’t meet your goals.

4. Your assets’ annual return. This, of course, is the great unknown. Not even Warren Buffett or Ben Bernanke can say what their portfolio will return each year. But the better your security selection and asset allocation decisions, the higher your annual compounded returns.

5. What you pay in expenses. Don’t be oblivious to what all those financial intermediaries are charging you. You can sacrifice far too much in commissions, bid/ask spreads, wrap fees, management expenses and other costs. All things being equal, the lower your expenses the higher your net returns.

6. How much you pay in taxes. Too many investors are oblivious to the tax ramifications of their investment moves. When possible, put your high-yielding investments in your tax-deferred accounts and your tax-efficient funds and individual stocks in your non-retirement accounts. (I call this your asset location strategy.) Hold positions 12 months or more to qualify for the lower long-term capital gains tax rate. Offset your capital gains with capital losses if possible.

You see what most investors don’t understand (and probably never will) is that market timing and stock picking make up only a small part of serious wealth building. It’s a secret the “ultra wealthy” have known for a long time. And they spend a lot of time and money making sure these six factors are right (and others, too, that would be too complicated to explain here). It’s how they hold onto their wealth for generations.

It’s actually what we’ve been working on while here in France. Along with my dad and your Notes co-editor, Chris Hunter, we’ve been researching these wealth preservation secrets. And we’ve discovered that wealthy families nearly always have something called a “family office.”

Most of these require massive amounts of cash to join. (One group in London my dad went to talk to was looking for a $200 million minimum!) So that’s why we decided to set up Bonner & Partners Family Office. It puts all of the money management secrets of the ultra wealthy to work… without the massive price tag.

Partners will enjoy the following benefits:

Access to what my family is doing with its money. Over the years we’ve spent literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on high-level wealth management advice. It’s been distilled into our family portfolio, which partners will have full access to.

Twice-daily market advice from full-time money manager Simon Mellon. The family has spent a lot of money, and considerable time, finding the right investment director for the family office. Simon has a resume as long as your arm. And his insight into the market is the kind that comes only with years in the trenches in New York and London.

Full-time tax planning advice from Raife Nueman. Raife went to university with your editor at St John’s College. And he’s one of the brightest attorneys we ever come across. (He has been elbow deep in the US tax code over the past two months, and he’s identified a way to drastically reduce your tax spend – to as much as 0% in some cases.)

Access to all of Agora trading advice and investment research. Family office partners will have full access to the entire daily output of Agora, the family publishing company. This amounts to 34 trading and investment research services. (A total of over $97,000 worth of subscription services a year.)

We will be sending out an invitation to join us as a family office partner this week. As a Notes reader, you can join the invitation list early by sending an email to info@contrarianprofits.com. Just make sure to put “Family Office” in the subject line so our staff will be able to quickly add you to the list before the invitation goes out…

If you’ve read my columns here or in our monthly Xcelerated Profits Report newsletter, you know that I focus on the small-cap space – both in my specialist areas of healthcare and biotech and other sectors, too.

Typically, these small-cap stocks are ripe for big gains more so than income through dividends. But I’m actually a big fan of dividends, too.

So what if there were a way to load your portfolio with outstanding profit potential and generate income, too? There is – and I’ve got three stocks below that can do the job…

Digging For Dividends

I’m not a market timer so I’m not going to tell you that now is the time to get out of equities before the market turns lower.

But what I will say is that with the Nasdaq and Russell 2000 (small-cap) indexes having blasted off their lows by 58% and 67% respectively, it makes sense to get a bit more defensive.

The reason is two-fold – and very simple: Owning dividend-paying stocks generates income and improves a portfolio’s return over the long-term.

However, it’s hard to find good small-cap companies that pay dividends. Smaller companies usually pour any excess cash back into the business to help it grow, rather than distributing it back to shareholders.

In fact, of more than 7,400 stocks with market caps under $1 billion, only 1,356 pay dividends. And if you want a meaningful dividend yield – let’s say 3% – the number decreases to less than 800.

I further whittled down the list to companies with high current ratios, low debt, and profit expectations to help ensure that dividends would continue to get paid.

I also stayed away from companies that paid a very high dividend. Companies with yields approaching 10% or higher may find those payouts unsustainable if business continues to be difficult.

Yes, if you want a higher potential reward, you do need to take on more risk. But buying stocks with sky-high dividends is riskier than those with solid but more sensible yields.

Here are three of the best from my small-cap dividend stock screen…

A Trio Of Small-Cap Dividend Stocks

• WD-40 Company (Nasdaq: WDFC): The company makes everyone’s favorite industrial lubricant – WD-40 – plus household cleaners and other products. Through the first nine months of its fiscal year, it generated $18 million in profits and boasts $36 million in cash versus $21 million in debt. Earnings per share are expected to grow 13% in fiscal 2010.Current dividend yield: 3.4%

• American Ecology Corporation (Nasdaq: ECOL): The firm handles America’s hazardous waste. Not a great business if you’re the guy with the rubber gloves moving barrels of the stuff. But not bad if you’re an investor – particularly a new one, given that the shares have endured a beating over the past year.ECOL is profitable, has $24 million in cash and no debt. Over the first six months of 2009, it generated $17 million in cash from operations. So far it has paid out over $6 million in the form of dividends.Current dividend yield: 4%
• CDI Corporation (NYSE: CDI): The company provides engineering and information technology staffing services. With so many businesses cutting jobs, it’s had a tough time over the past year. But it’s still profitable, with earnings per share expected to nearly double next year. It has $77 million in cash, no debt and generated $10 million in cash from operations.Current dividend yield 3.6%.

If you have any small-caps paying dividends in your portfolio, use the “Comments” link below to let me know which ones are your favorites and I’ll run a follow-up column, featuring stocks sent in by readers. Be sure to tell me why you like the stocks, too.

Hoping your longs go up and your shorts go down.

Source: How To Grab Growth And Solid Income From The Small-Cap Sector

This from Investment U:

The other day, a neighbor knocked on my door to ask me if I could do a welding repair on his riding lawnmower. Welding is tricky business, and it’s more art than science. Making a good strong weld takes many hours of practice making bad ones. I can personally attest to this.

My wire-feed welder surrounds the welding area with carbon dioxide gas (CO2), which keeps oxygen away from the weld site. This results in a strong professional looking weld.

As I started the job, I realized I was out of CO2, and would have to make a quick trip to my local distributor, Airgas Inc. (NYSE:ARG) for a refill. The reasons I go there are the same as why you need to take a look at this unique company.

I’ve never been when they weren’t busy – this visit was no exception. And for good reason: Airgas is the largest distributor of packaged medical, industrial and specialty gases in the country. The company sells over 43 specialty gases from nearly 1,100 retail and service stores nationwide from their base in Radnor, Pennsylvania.

Airgas Inc. – The Largest Producer of CO2 & Nitrous Oxide

Founded in 1982, Airgas is the largest producer of CO2 (both liquid and gas), dry ice (frozen CO2) and nitrous oxide (more commonly known as laughing gas). Airgas maintains over 30 regional specialty gas research and development laboratories and operates more than 150 gas filling stations.

• CO2 in its various forms is used in the medical, industrial and food preparation industries.
• Nitrous oxide is used in the medical and dental industries as an anesthetic and also as an aerosol spray propellant.

Airgas manufactures its various gases at 14 air separation plants located around the country. They operate 19 plants that manufacture acetylene – a highly explosive, specialty gas used primarily by the chemical industry to synthesize other chemicals or for high temperature welding and cutting.

In addition, Airgas also sells gas related products such as regulators, flow meters, check valves, gauges, purifiers and gas detection equipment. It maintains a full line of welders and welding equipment as well.

Business Couldn’t Be Better For Airgas Inc.

Business couldn’t be better for Airgas Inc. – even in this tough economic environment. On October 23, Airgas announced record earnings and strong growth in sales and operating income for its second quarter ending September 20.

Quarterly earnings were up 44% to $72.8 million on a sales increase of 15% to $1.2 billion – fueled by acquisitions, an increase in same-store sales of 8% and a 12% hike in gas sales and cylinder rental.

Peter McCausland, the company’s CEO since its inception, said, “We are performing very well in a moderating economic environment, and our expanded offering that targets infrastructure construction has been successful in gaining new business, particularly in the power and energy sectors.

“About 40% of our sales come from our strategic products, which posted 11% organic growth in the quarter and are focused on the medical, life sciences, research, environmental and food and beverage markets.

“Acquisition activity has been strong in the first half of our fiscal year, with a total of six acquisitions and $142 million of acquired annual revenue to date. We are expanding returns by effectively integrating acquisitions and leveraging our extensive distribution infrastructure.”

Airgas Inc. Increases Quarterly Dividends

Things are going so well, in fact, Airgas Inc. reiterated its 2009 full year earnings guidance of $3.30 to $3.40 per share, and increased the quarterly dividend 33% to $0.16 per share.

The company continues to generate strong free cash flow, even while funding numerous plant projects that will be operational in the next year. Airgas is somewhat insulated from the economic slowdown since many of its products are used in maintenance and repair of aging infrastructure, and in the medical and food industries.

Shares of Airgas hit a 52-week low of $27.09 on October 24 and have soared 37% in just the last week. At present levels, the stock trades at a very respectable P/E of 12 and sports a 1.72% dividend yield.

As many of you who’ve been regular Investment U readers know, I’m a big fan of the infrastrucutre and energy sectors. As we wait for the broader markets to recover, the infrastructure service sector looks like it will be a great place to invest. Investors who want more exposure to this sector might want to consider adding a few shares of Airgas to their portfolio.

Source: Airgas Inc. (NYSE: ARG): This Company’s on Fire…